WORCESTER — If Lee Anne Chesko had informed her on-and-off boyfriend James Rutherford that she was involved in a murder he'd have turned her in, Mr. Rutherford told police who were investigating the slaying of Francis Spokis of Rutland in July 2011.

"If there was anything she told me that was this heavy, I'd have no problem giving her up," Mr. Rutherford told state police during an interview about eight days after Mr. Spokis' death.

Mr. Rutherford is accused of killing Mr. Spokis with Ms Chesko.

A tape of a lengthy police interview with Mr. Rutherford was played in Worcester Superior Court Wednesday. In it, Mr. Rutherford acts stunned to learn that there may be evidence from a murder in his car and evidence of his presence left at the Spokis' home. He blamed Ms. Chesko, telling police she could have brought items with her and left things in his vehicle.

As far as his own involvement, he told police he didn't know Mr. Spokis, didn't know where Wachusett Street in Rutland (where Mr. Spokis lived) is, and would have an alibi if he could only remember which of his girlfriends he'd been with the night of July 5, 2011.

"I change girls," he said. "I change where I stay."

Mr. Rutherford, 27, whose alleged accomplice, Ms. Chesko, 26, is believed to have had a sexual relationship with Mr. Spokis for which she was paid with drugs. Mr. Rutherford wondered aloud during the audiotaped interview just what she had "gotten herself into."

Police believe the pair killed Mr. Spokis July 5 or 6 and took electronics, jewelry, weapons and a purse containing baby teeth from Mr. Spokis' daughter.

Assistant District Attorneys Daniel J. Bennett and Terry J. McLaughlin are prosecuting the case and hope to prove the murder was premeditated. One witness testified that she was asked to provide storage for items to be stolen before the robbery.

Investigators followed a bloody trail to Mr. Spokis, whose body was found in the basement by his wife when she returned with their daughter from vacation, police have said.

Mr. Rutherford, in the taped interview, denied being with Ms. Chesko on the date police asked about, and said they'd been fighting and he needed a break from her so he took her to her father's house.

But when police told Mr. Rutherford they knew from a store surveillance tape that he and Ms. Chesko had been together on July 5 and that Ms. Chesko had made a call from a pay phone at a Holden convenience store, he agreed he had probably mixed up the dates.

He denied knowing who she had phoned, and police told him there had been a serious crime related to the call.

"You ready for this?" the detective asked during the interview. "She called a guy and the guy turned up dead."

"The guy turned up dead?" Mr. Rutherford repeated before telling the detective he hadn't heard of any murders in the area.

The detective told Mr. Rutherford no one had said there was a murder and Mr. Rutherford said he was "putting two and two together" and apologized.

Several times during the interview Mr. Rutherford told police he comes from "a good family" with a Christian mother who would have "accepted Bin Laden if he came to her door."

Mr. Rutherford said Ms. Chesko, who was at the time five months pregnant with his child, was not very good looking, had an occasional crack habit and "plays around in the trash."

"She doesn't have the (expletive) family that I do," he said.

Lorenzo Perez, Mr. Rutherford's lawyer, raised a diminished-capacity defense for his client, maintaining his drug problem rendered him mentally incapable of forming intent to kill, a requirement for a first-degree murder conviction. Mr. Rutherford lacked the capacity to premeditate his alleged acts because of drug addiction and withdrawal, his lawyer has said.

Mr. Perez questioned Trooper David Cravedi, who testified about the taped interview, asking him if Mr. Rutherford admitted to using cocaine on July 4, something the trooper agreed was said.

Mr. Rutherford also said during the interview that Ms. Chesko was controlling and childish and that she manipulated him by keeping the baby he'd told her to "get rid of" as a way of ensuring they'd have a relationship.

Also on the stand Wednesday was Luz Hernandez, a close friend of Mr. Rutherford who, through tears, testified that he had asked to store some items in her storage room.

She said he told her he was going to rob somebody and offered to sell her a television, which she kept in her living room before she paid him $500 for it.

Worcester Police Detective James O'Rourke testified that he and another officer found Mr. Rutherford behind the Registry of Motor Vehicles on June 29, 2011. He was ducked down and had a purse, Ms. Chesko's driver's license along with a pellet pistol and a knife that he said he needed to protect himself.

Judge Janet Kenton-Walker is presiding over the trial, which continues today in Worcester Superior Court.

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